


Dogpile

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: "bed", Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Burning buildings, Gen, Grizzop gets kicked in the mouth a little bit, Platonic Cuddling, Sasha/Azu if you squint, Self-Indulgent, Sharing a Bed, but you don't have to squint that hard, honestly you can probably see most ships in here if you wanna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 10:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15289512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: The Tahan Branch is smoking in the background as several clerics of Aphrodite faff. The party is tired,sotired, and they're given a night in the temple to rest.In Which Grizzop and Hamid bicker, Azu smiles and problem-solves, and Sasha thinks about some stuff.





	Dogpile

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off of a drawing that camille magictavern made and i saw and went "YES" so tada. THREE WORKS IN THIS TAG and theyre all mine. come on guys. write so i can read stuff that isn't my own stupid self-indulgent twaddle.

The Tahan Branch is smoking in the background as several clerics of Aphrodite faff. Azu (who is partially responsible for that smoke) is rushing about, healing bystanders and telling them comforting things such as, "There there," and, "It's all right, you're not dead." About a third of the bystanders she heals wake up, take one look at the giant Orc smiling at them with very sharp tusks and pass right back out again. A natural charmer, she is. But Sasha (who is half responsible for that smoke) shouldn't really talk, she's not great with people either. 

Grizzop (who is only a little bit responsible for that smoke) is following close to a man in a suit's heels. His ears are flat against his head, pointing behind him ( _frustration_ ). Aforementioned man in a suit is doing his best to get rid of Grizzop to absolutely no effect. Aforementioned Goblin is screeching something along the lines of _"This whole thing could have been prevented! Maybe if you had paid more attention-- we had_ legal endorsement! _But did you listen to us? No! And honestly, I can't believe--"_ and so on and so forth. Sasha, to be honest, isn't even quite sure what this particular man-in-a-suit did to deserve the screeching. Probably something about money. Maybe Hamid will know. He's the one who pays attention to this sort of thing.

"Hamid?" Hamid (who is mostly responsible for that smoke) stares at the branch. There's a very pronounced pair of tear tracks down his sooty face. "Hamid, who's the guy Grizzop's yelling at?" He shrugs. The shock blanket on his shoulders glimmers. It's probably, like, magic. Or something. Sasha doesn't really understand why they're called 'shock' blankets. Maybe, a long time ago, there was an electricity elemental? 

"Sasha! Sasha, look!" Sasha's head jerks up to see Azu, dragging along a very exasperated Fairhands. Or maybe that's just their normal face? Sasha doesn't know. They've looked like that everytime Azu's been with them, but that might only be because of Azu. "Sasha, we've got access to the Heart!" 

Hamid blinks. "The Heart?" He asks, "The Heart of Aphrodite?" 

Sasha stands up very quickly, almost falling into the paladin as she stumbles closer. "The thing that can fix me?" 

Azu nods excitedly. Fairhands sighs. "Yes, it's _only_ to fix you. The Meritocrats made it _very clear_ we weren't to use it on anything else." They say, incredibly passive-aggressively. There's some stuff to deal with there, but honestly, Sasha is too tired to deal with it. 

She reaches into a coat to find a dagger to fidget with but stops herself. Time and place. She tugs at her jacket sleeve instead and asks, "Right, yeah, well, is that happening today? Or? Like, when?" 

Fairhands runs a delicate hand through delicate hair, before pinching the delicate bridge of their nose. "Tomorrow evening. It'll be arriving tomorrow morning, and the customs will take all day. In the meantime, you can stay in the temple."

Very distantly, Sasha hears Grizzop start, _"And one_ more _thing--"_ in a way that doesn't suggest he'll _stop_ anytime soon. 

She nudges Hamid. "Should, uh, should someone go get him?" Hamid nods, not moving at all otherwise. "Right. Yeah. Azu, can you go get--" Azu beams at her, striding off to go corral the squeaky paladin. 

Over her shoulder, she calls, "Fear not, Sasha! I'll go tell him the amazing news!" Fairhands watches her go with a look of bone-deep exhaustion, and Sasha understands exactly what that feels like. 

She clears her throat after a moment. "So, like. Can we just go to the temple now?"

Hamid stands up, looking suaver and more put-together than he has since... probably since when they first got to _Dover_ , actually. Wow. And yeah, there are still bags under his eyes, and he's a little paler than is probably healthy, but he looks the way a Sorcerer ought to. Like the kind of man who could charm you into thinking the sky was red. Like the kind of man who could pull a mansion out of thin air. Like the kind of man who's lost everyone and everything he's cared about in very little time and is far too drained to cry. He makes a handkerchief disappear as he finishes prestidigitating himself. "I don't see," he tells her, staring Fairhands down, "why not. We've all had a very long day." Fairhands looks like they're about to argue when Azu drags Grizzop up. 

(He's not actually being dragged, he's being held firmly in Azu's arms.)  
(His ears are flicking in small, fast circles which Sasha is pretty sure means _displeasure_ but maybe not.)  
(Sasha can't relate; Azu has quite lovely arms.)

"So, what's happening? Where do we go now?" Grizzop asks. Azu beams down at him. 

Hamid and Fairhands try to quiet her, but she blunders on loudly, "We are spending the night in the Temple!"

And honestly, there's no way any of them are enthusiastic or awake enough to argue with that.

°•°•°

They end up sharing a room. Azu already has one; it's the path of least resistance. Her room is actually quite comfortable looking. There isn't so much a bed as there is a corner of just _blankets_. And pillows. And many, many, _many many many_ quilts. There are small posters stuck on the walls with things like, "Hang in there!" and "Love yourself!" and "Good is something you are, not just something you do!" and a lot of other motivational slogans plastered on them.

It looks _exactly_ the way Sasha expected it to.

The small foot locker with, "AZU: TOTALLY COMPETENT PALADIN" is filled with clothes that are exactly like what Sasha expected to find, too. Everything is some shade of pink, most have at least one heart, and someone has sewn "AZU" into the collar of every single thing that Sasha picks up to examine. Not _examine_ in like, a creepy way, though. Just in like, a sort of, examine-y way. Yeah. There aren't any explosives, or potions, or suspicious rings. And Sasha wasn't really expecting to find anything bad in Azu's chest, it's _Azu_. Within five minutes of meeting them, the paladin agreed to become part of their group! Like, with a pledge and everything!

(And wow, the LOLOMG's contract is a lot more like a marriage contract than Sasha had realised. Well, if you listened to Grizzop, anyway. Sasha doesn't know what a marriage contract sounds like. But Grizzop says it seems like a marriage. So. He probably knows what he's talking about, right?)

"Why are you looking through her things?" Ah. Speaking of Grizzop. Maybe if she does it sneakily enough, the Goblin will forget that he saw her rifling through Azu's stuff. Flowing like really oily ball-bearings, she shoves the (shirt? pants? jumper?) back into the locker and shuts it. Loudly. Grizzop is still looking at her weird, so she wasn't stealthy enough. Damn. "Sasha, why are you looking through Azu's things?"

She shrugs. "I just wondered what was in it?" Grizzop squints, left ear slowly raising ( _confusion_ ). Sasha squints back. Grizzop squints harder. Sasha squints harder still. 

(She used to win so many staring contests, Grizzop doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.) 

A sizeable green hand moves between the pair, interrupting their silent staring contest. (Grizzop blinks in surprise though, so Sasha technically still wins.) "Excuse me," Azu says, reaching into the chest Sasha had just slammed shut, "I just need to get my jumper." She pulls out a pink turtleneck with a darker pink heart sewn onto the front. And then Azu begins shucking her armour, and Sasha begins looking _anywhere but at Azu._

(Sasha knows that Azu has clothes on under the armour. She isn't stupid, and she's seen the pale pink shirtsleeves poking out from under the hot pink pauldrons. But like. Azu is still _undressing_ , is the point. It's weird to look at someone while they're undressing. It's _impolite_.)

"Anywhere but at Azu" turns out to be at Grizzop, who blinks indignantly at the other paladin, and then looks back at Sasha. "You shouldn't go through people's things." He mutters quietly. And-- look, she knows that, okay? She knows you shouldn't look through people's things! But what if they have a bomb? Or, like, a lot of shiny things that need appraising? What if there's a cool knife? And Sasha wouldn't have actually taken anything! She just-- she needs to _check_ things. Like, how she checked Hamid's flat for Alchemist's Fire, and for letters from Barrott, and for reasons why he might be helping her. Because when they first met, Sasha hadn't trusted anyone to just _help_ her, free of charge.

She trusts a little more now. Not the way Azu and Hamid do, she's smarter than that. But she thinks that sometimes, some people can be good simply for the sake of it. Maybe not _only_ for the sake of it, there's always at least one ulterior motive. At least they're usually simple ones like, "prove myself to my family" or, "prove myself to my religious order" or something. _Bertie's_ motive had been really complicated, but Sasha guesses he hadn't really been doing much good. He did hit things, though. Hit them _well_ good.

But now he's dead. Her first ever... _friend_... is dead. The one who got everyone involved when Barrett sent people after her. And yeah, he was only doing it for the stupid contract and trying to "rescue a damsel in distress" or whatever, and he turned out to be a terrible person, but he still helped her! He still liked her, at least a little bit. 

(It doesn't matter now. Because Bertie's dead. And Sasha's dead, too. But she won't be by tomorrow! She'll be alive again, tomorrow. In theory. Probably. Unless they botch it, and she ends up All-Dead instead of Lich-Dead. That wouldn't be good. That would hurt. A lot.)

Sasha starts fidgeting with one of her knives and realises that Azu has a hand on her shoulder. "Sasha. You'll be fine. Aaron Fairhands is an expert, they won't let you get hurt a lot. They won't let you get hurt a little! You'll be alive again. I promise." Sasha looks up at her, and Azu smiles. Sharp tusks poke out from green lips, and it actually makes Sasha feel a little more at ease. Almost enough to ask Azu how much of that she'd said out loud.

(Sometimes, Sasha talks without meaning to. Nothing bad! But sometimes she mumbles reminders to herself. "Hamid's trying to help, don't yell at him" when the Halfling lectures. "This is a _hug_ you're safe" when the Goblin tries to comfort her. "Azu can't know what kind of place you come from" when the Orc smiles. "They would have killed your friends" or "They had it coming" when she stabs someone. "You're safe you're safe you're safe" when she doesn't believe it. She hasn't gotten any weird looks though, so she's getting better at reminding herself quietly.)

"Right. I'll be fine. Cheers. Where's the bed?" Azu beams and gestures at the pile of bedding, which Hamid and Grizzop have sat down on. At opposite ends, not looking at each other. (They must be bickering again. About what, Sasha has no idea, but at least right now they're quiet about it.) Sasha blinks at the pile, then turns back to Azu. "No, like, where are _our_ beds?" 

A puzzled expression crosses the paladin's face. "I... thought we'd share?"

A very shrill "WHAT?" comes from both ends of the pile, as the boys start paying attention. (And hey, that's something they can do now! Divide the group into "girls" and "boys" like they couldn't before. It's nice having another girl in the group.) "I'm not sharing a bed with you! That's weird!" shrieks Grizzop as Hamid announces, "I'm not sharing a bed with him!" in the exact same tone. Grizzops ears flare out as he turns to look at Hamid and _oh no that's what his ears do right before he starts insulting people_. 

"With _me?_ But it's okay if it's with them?" He asks, giving Hamid a Look. Sasha isn't quite sure what that Look means, but she recognises the disgust in his voice when Grizzop says, "Come on, Hamid." Sasha gets the implication, but it makes her feel so gross she can't say anything about it. (Hamid? Like _that?_ Worse than when Bertie and Wilde first met.) Hamid stammers for a second, face going red and hands turning scaly. No claws, but more metallic than they really ought to be.

(It's just what happens when he feels too much or too intensely. Like when Sasha has to take out a dagger or two and flip them around. Neither of them means to, it just kind of happens. It helps get the emotions out in a way that isn't dangerous.)

(But it doesn't really matter if Hamid has claws or if Sasha has daggers in her hands. They're dangerous anyway, no matter what they're feeling.)

Hamid screeches, "Platonically, yes! But I don't want to be anywhere near _you!_ You think the Branch deserved what happened just because they wouldn't let us into the tomb!" Oh, _that's_ what they're arguing about this time. Eh. The quicker they stop fighting, the quicker Sasha can rest. She argued for Hamid the last time these two got into a screamfest she didn't care about, so she'll be with Grizzop on this one. He's also kinda right. 

She puts a hand in the air like she never did in class and looks at Hamid's forehead. It's not eye-contact, but it seems like it. "It was a _little_ their fault, mate. We had, like, papers and everything. For once. We need to get more papers, they keep getting lost or burned or eaten." Hamid looks at her, scowling. 

For half a second, as he opens his mouth to protest, she swears she sees fangs. "I know it was their fault, but they shouldn't have been blown up!" Yeah, that's actually a good point. She shrugs and moves back out of the conversation.

"How about we just turn it into two separate beds?"

Everyone stares at Azu. Azu smiles, hands on hips like she's solved everything, and now everyone will be happy. And actually, that's not such a bad idea. But Hamid just sighs. "No, no. You don't have to rearrange your room for us. We can just sleep away from each other." 

Grizzop squints at him and shifts towards the pile of soft stuff. " _Far_ away from each other." 

Hamid bows his head slightly and steps away. " _Very_ far away from each other." Grizzop's ears flick up ( _surprise_ ), and he nods in acknowledgement before finding a place to lie down.

(It's weird, watching them have these arguments. Because sometimes they fight like Hamid and Zolf did; They have heated debates about important, unquantifiable philosophies that have come from their own personal tragedies and experiences. But other times, they bicker like she and Brock used to; They misunderstand one another and squabble over who's _technically_ right because "That's the wrong word! 'Shenanigans' means we're doing wrong things on purpose! We're just having fun on a rooftop Jones told us not to have fun on. That isn't _wrong_ , it's just _not allowed._ " )

(Actually, she's pretty sure they had almost that exact argument, once. It was about looting Carter, not playing with loaded red dice on a poorly made rooftop, but it was similar enough.)

"Sasha?" 

She blinks. "What?" 

Hamid reaches up and takes her hand. "Are you all right with being that close to other people?" 

Ah. She hadn't realised that bit. 

"Uh, yeah, mate, it's whatever." He looks at her with pity in his big brown eyes. 

His voice is so soft when he asks, "Are you sure?" that it makes her want to stab something. Not him, she'd never stab him, but. Something. She nods, taking her hand back. It's whatever, she's fine, she's _great_ with people. Hamid just worries too much. She walks purposefully towards the part of the corner-of-soft where she can put her back to the wall. Which is kind of all of it, so she goes to the part where she can put her back to the wall the most.

And then she ignores everybody else and goes to sleep in her boots and jacket because otherwise, she'll be too cold and exposed.

(As she's partway through a dream about terrible dice and a very exasperated man putting his head in his hands as her own laughter echoes around a stuffy room, she half-wakes to something warm settling next to her. She's so cold, now, always cold, so she throws an arm over the something and drifts back off, feeling for the first time in weeks like she's not going to freeze to death.)

•°•°•

Grizzop wakes up with his hand on top of Azu's stomach and Sasha's hand on top of his. 

It's actually kind of comfortable, except for the socked foot that's stuck to the side of his face. It's probably Hamid's, and it's probably why he's awake. He gingerly takes it by the ankle and moves the foot away from his face so he can get back to sleep.

And gets kicked in the mouth.

"GAH, FIDDLESTICKS!" he shouts, except it wasn't "fiddlesticks", but that's _justified_ , he felt a few teeth come loose. 

Hamid starts, feels his ankle being gripped tightly, and wriggles it frantically, screaming, "WHAT? WHAT'S HAPPENED?" Grizzop spits some blood out. 

He calmly turns to the Halfling and explains, "YOU KICKED ME IN THE MOUTH IS WHAT'S HAPPENED!" 

Hamid takes in a deep breath, probably to screech some balderdash that won't help the situation, but is interrupted by Sasha groggily asking, "Why is everyone yelling?" All of the shouts about Hamid kicking him die in his throat, and Grizzop blinks over at her. She's curled onto Azu's shoulder, one arm under the Orc's head and the other across her chest. Her hair is surrounding her head in a messy rat's nest, her eyes squinting at him, her nose wrinkled in distaste. Despite all that, she looks calm in a way she hasn't since Grizzop has met her. 

He pats her arm. "It's nothing, Sasha. Go back to bed." She huffs and puts her head back into the crook between Azu's shoulder and neck.

Hamid puts a hand on Grizzop's shoulder. "Did I really kick you?" he asks softly. 

Grizzop shrugs the hand away. "It's all right." He readjusts his jaw, casts Cure Light Wounds and feels the teeth fix themselves firmly back into his gums. "Just don't do it again." He lies back down and hears Hamid shuffling away. 

Not _far_ away, apparently, because a few minutes later, Grizzop feels the brush of a woollen sock on his nose. 

"Seriously, if you put your foot in my face again, I'll bite it off."

**Author's Note:**

> i literally didn't know how else to end this thanks. find me on tumblr https://roswell-the-wrongdoer.tumblr.com and find the lovely piece of art right here http://magictavern.tumblr.com/post/174744192633/happy-birthday-rusty-quill-gaming-heres


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